Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" is stunningly stylish, but it's tripped up by its own trickery

“Seen any walking nightmares lately, marshal?” a woman asksdeputy marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) late in director Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. She’s a psychiatrist,although she might as well be a psychic: Daniels has been prowling around thecreepy corridors of the Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and he’switnessed enough scary sights to fill a month’s worth of bad dreams.

It’s 1954, and psychiatric hospitals are not far from thedismal days of ice baths, crudely administered electro-shock treatments andother atrocities. In Ashecliffe’s Ward C, patients are still stripped naked andlocked up in filthy, dark cells where their bodies rot and their mindsdeteriorate. The conditions in Ashecliffe’s other buildings are slightlybetter, although nobody’s going to mistake it for a country-club prison.

Adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel, “Shutter” is a freakshow with artsy pretensions. Scorsese uses the 1950s setting topay tribute to some of that era’s most memorable movies: When Daniels clings tothe face of a rocky cliff overlooking the raging Massachusetts Bay waters,Scorsese works in appreciative nods to Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest”and “Vertigo” in the space of one minute. Robert Richardson’s lusciouscinematography — even the most sordid images are stunningly lit and perfectlyframed — recalls the creamy Technicolor soap operas of director Douglas Sirk(“Written on the Wind,” “Imitation of Life”). Scorsese also finds the uglyundercurrents in some of the seemingly benign artifacts of the day; Kay Starr’stear-stained ballad “Wheel of Fortune” is re-engineered into an unnervingly wobbly melody, as Scorsese distorts the sound of Starr belting out “spinning,spinning, spinning” and “turning, turning, turning” into a rush of woozy warbling.

Ultimately however, “Shutter” is shackled by its almostabsurdly tricky plot, which is heavy with red herrings, flamboyant flashbackscenes and an unfortunate abundance of dream sequences and hallucinations.Daniels is haunted by visions of his dead wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams),who perished in an apartment fire. He sees her solemnly moving through theirold living room as ashes rain down from the ceiling; when Dolores turns around,Daniels can see her back is being eaten away by flames.

Dolores’ death hangs over Daniels’ head as he and hispartner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), investigate the disappearance of one ofAshecliffe’s female patients. The doctors who oversee Ashecliffe (Ben Kingsleyand Max von Sydow) offer little help, which leads Daniels to suspect they havesomething to hide. Further poking around reveals curious connections to theHouse Un-American Activities Committee, the Dachau concentration camp andrumors of sadistic experiments being conducted in a lighthouse.

But the Nazis and the Red Scare turn out to be nothing morethan topical window dressing as “Shutter” steadily degenerates into a standard Old DarkHouse yarn, complete with creaky-squeaky doors, blackouts, a vicious hurricane, scads of elaborately ugly makeup, and an assortment of gnarled hands grasping for Daniels as he makes his way through thecellblock of Ward C.

Although Scorsese manages to squeeze a few scares out ofthis well-worn material, there aren’t enough shocks to hold the interest as“Shutter” chugs along for almost two and a half dreary hours. Cameo appearancesfrom such dynamos as Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle Haleyare initially exciting, until the realization sets in that they’re onlydropping by to reiterate what any half-alert viewer already knows: On ShutterIsland, there’s no one you can trust and nothing is what it seems to be. Whenit comes to storytelling, Scorsese and screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis error onthe side of excess, telling too much and overexplaining what could have easilybeen left to the imagination.

With the exception of DiCaprio, the actors seem to functionprimarily as props or devices to keep the plot percolating. DiCaprio, lookinglike Edward G. Robinson’s baby brother in his fedora and gaudy Hawaiiannecktie, is better at projecting dogged determination than he is at handlingDaniels’ Boston accent (“doctor” sometimes turns into “dork-tuh”). Hisstrongest moments come in his scenes with the criminally underused Williams; itwould be great to see them get an opportunity to work together with Scorsese ina movie with more substance and less smoke-and-mirrors gimmickry.